Breaking Point
by SopranoZone
Summary: Oneshot Post fic for Iron Man 2, told in small scenes picking up after the end of the movie. Pepper tries to deal with the fact she didn't know Tony was dying.


_**Much thanks to shadow12 , laughableme , and roxannej for helping me not rip my hair out whilst writing this.**_

**Breaking Point**

Pepper Potts had never been so relieved to have Tony Stark fall asleep on her shoulder in the back of a car.

Granted, in the past, his falling asleep in the back of the car had meant he was drunk beyond all reason, and that she and Happy would have to drag him into the house. Usually it also meant dealing with a hung-over billionaire genius the next day who would completely derail any previous plans his harried PA had made for him.

Tonight, as she watched his face go lax, head lolled back against the headrest, she found herself wondering if there was any way she could postpone the thousands of queries that were sure to come in tomorrow so that he could keep sleeping.

"_Yes, for the moment I'm not dying... Thank you."_

She still couldn't fully wrap her head around what she'd heard, when the video communications link opened up with Tony and Natalie-Natasha? Tony couldn't be dying. She'd know the man for more than ten years, surely she of all people would pick up on that.

But as their car slowly made its way through New York to the penthouse, Pepper found a weight of guilt and dread building on her chest. She _hadn't _noticed it. She did now, though. She could see the dark circles under his eyes, the bruising that was far more extensive than it had ever been before. His skin was glossy with a light sweat, and in the tight neoprene suit, she could see that he'd lost weight.

Tony let out a light sigh, rubbing his face lightly against her shoulder. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, looking out the window with suddenly glossy eyes.

Pepper awoke to the sounds of the shower running in the other room. Still slightly disoriented, she realized she had fallen asleep after they'd gotten Tony into bed. She stretched as she sat up, looking around for the heels she'd kicked off.

As she bent to pick them up, Tony came out of the bathroom dressed in a loose pair of gray sweats with a towel draped over his bare shoulder. He paused when he saw her.

"Oh. Sorry Potts, didn't mean to wake you yet."

She did a quick sweep of his form; the loss of weight was more noticeable, and she couldn't be sure at this distance, but there appeared to be light bruising around the reactor. He did, however, look slightly better than he had in the car last night.

"No, it's fine. I need to get up and get started on what we're going to do about that mess last night."

He made his way over to his dresser before he turned back over to her with a grin.

"I thought you quit being my CEO. Does that mean you're withdrawing your resignation?"

"No, Tony, I was serious. I don't think I can handle the stress of wrangling you and running your company."

"Wrangling me? And here I thought we were onto something more stable-ish than that."

She snorted indelicately, getting to her feet and heading out into the hall towards the room she normally stayed in here at the penthouse. As she was rummaging through her own drawers, Tony came down the hall toward the kitchen, backtracking suddenly to step quickly into her room and kiss her lightly on the cheek.

"I'm making some coffee, want some, Potts?"

"Uhm, yes please," she said quickly, moving toward the closet to avoid him seeing her blush. "Cream, two sugars."

"Coming right up."

Once he disappeared from sight, she sat down at the foot of the bed.

Tony wouldn't let go of her hand.

From the car onto the plane, he kept his fingers twined with hers, rubbing small circles against her hand with his thumb. Even when Rhodey called, he kept her anchored to his side. She pulled out her own Blackberry and started the formidable task of damage control from the night before.

They had been in the air almost an hour when Tony squeezed her hand to grab her attention again. She looked up to see him pressing his phone to his chest to cover the mouthpiece.

"Pepper, you mind grabbing something for me to eat? Anything but salad. Or actually, anything that isn't green would be fantastic. Let's make it a hamburger."

She extracted her hand with a wry smile. "I'll see what I can do."

Making her way to the back of the plane, Pepper inquired with the attendant—a 40-something year old woman named Bonnie who had replaced the previous impractical bimbos previously employed—as to what options there were available in the kitchenette. Bonnie accompanied her back and helped her get started on some grilled chicken. Keeping up light conversation for several minutes, Pepper felt her chest clench as she saw Bonnie pull out the tan serving tray.

"_What is that?"_

"_What's it look like? This is your in-flight meal."_

"_Did you just...make that?"_

"_Of course, where do you think I've been for three hours?"_

Pepper began to feel sick to her stomach as she recalled the conversation. She leaned against the counter heavily, head down as she took deep breaths to settle herself.

"_I don't wanna go home. At all. Let's cancel my birthday party, and uh. we're in Europe, lets go to Venice, Cipriani...remember?...It's _great_ place to, to...be healthy."_

Pepper quickly stepped away, ignoring Bonnie's concerned questioning as she quickly went back to the cabin. She stopped dead when she saw him.

He was off the phone, out cold with his head against the window. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she made her way over to tentatively sit next to him. She reached out, brushing a wayward lock of his hair off his forehead before cupping his cheek. He sighed, and she withdrew her hand and leaned in to kiss his forehead. She removed her shoes, before curling her legs under her on the seat and situating herself to grip his arm, head resting on his shoulder.

The sound of his deep, relaxed breathing eased her into sleep until they reached Los Angeles.

When they reached the mansion, Pepper was startled to see the destruction left over from Tony's birthday party. For one thing, the windows were all gone, and seagulls were nesting in the broken bar and fireplace. In the back of her mind, she recognized that not even Tony's fortune could fix such a mess in only two days, but the larger part of her couldn't believe it'd only been that long, and not weeks, since the fiasco. She also noticed that there appeared to be a purposefully made hole in the floor, with thick cables leading down to (presumably) the workshop.

She paused as Tony stopped on his way to the workshop stairs, turning to face her with a somewhat thoughtful look. "Pepper, you sure you don't want to go to your place? I mean, as much as I love having you here, it's kinda a mess. Workshop's not much better...except for the wildlife," he said, eyeing the gulls. "Probably don't have that down there, unless you count Dummy and U as wildlife."

"No, it's fine, Tony. I should probably look around and make arrangements to get everything repaired—it's gonna take a while," she said, glancing warily at all the damage once again.

"That doesn't sound like a CEO thing to do... Which, you know, is okay, now that we kinda have this thing going," he said with a grin. When she didn't immediately respond, his brow furrowed "We have a thing now, right? Cuz that's the impression I was getting what with the kissing and cuddling...That's usually a thing, isn't it?"

His confused/wary look tugged at her heart. She smiled to reassure him as the look began to shift to a slightly panicked expression. "Yes, we have a 'thing' as you so eloquently put it. But I've thought about it, and I might just go mad with boredom if I didn't have something to keep me busy from nine to five. Consider this my application for rehire as your personal assistant?"

He blinked at her. "You have to ask? You're hired."

He then grabbed her hand and led her down the stairs, mindful of the shards left over from the glass fountain. Jarvis greeted them as they entered the workshop.

"Welcome home sir, Miss Potts. I'm pleased to see you back and in one piece."

"Good to be back, Jarvis. Anything new round home?"

"Negative, everything is precisely as you left it. Mister Hogan has arranged to bring by the damaged suit later this afternoon."

Pepper surveyed the chaos of Tony's workshop—chaos to rival any she'd ever seen in his domain. The thick black cords she'd seen upstairs were hanging down from the hole in the ceiling, connected to a series of pipes precariously stacked on books, crates and even one of the motorcycles. The pipes curved from yet another hole the North-East wall out the garage exit to the North-West. There was also a direct, destructive burn line between the pipes and wall.

"Uhm, Tony? What...what happened in here? Did the workshop get damaged when Rhodey...?"

"No, this was me. I had to find a way to synthesize the Starktonium, so I had to throw together a plasma accelerator," he said in a distracted manner as he made his way to the computer.

"...Plasma...?"

"Dummy! U! Why haven't you worked on cleaning this up yet? I swear, I'm gonna strip you both down and make you into Erector Sets..."

Said robots moved forward and attempted to begin cleaning up. Tony was flitting from one end of the workshop to the other in such a disjointed manner that Pepper couldn't exactly tell what he was doing. She sat down on the (remarkably undamaged) couch and simply waited.

"Jarvis, what's our stats on the new chestpiece?"

"All appears to be working as we anticipated. However, since we did not finish running diagnostics on it, I cannot fully say if there will be any complications or additional work needed. Might I suggest finishing the diagnostic run?"

Tony spun in his chair, frowning at his computer as Jarvis pulled up statistics.

"I guess we kinda have to, what with the creating a new element thing...How long did you say it'd take?"

"My estimation for completion of diagnostics is about an hour."

"Right. Let's do it."

Pepper watched Tony reach to grab the old chestpiece off his desk, glancing at it with a distasteful grimace. He then pulled out what she knew was his father's old cigar box and opened it, withdrawing a slim silver cartridge.

"..dang, last one, too...Yuck."

She wasn't sure, but she thought that maybe her own heart stopped as he reached under his shirt and pulled out the newer chest piece to replace it with the old. He then placed the..."Starktonium" chestpiece in the diagnostic console. He then looked over at her with a playful grimace.

"Yuck," he repeated.

Pepper felt a slight chill run down her spine as she watched him nonchalantly pull up a vital signs monitor on the computer screen, presumably monitoring how his body was reacting to the old reactor once again. She took a deep steadying breath. "Ton-"

She was cut off as her phone rang. Glancing down, she was surprised to realize that she had missed several calls, including a few from the SHIELD liaison number, as well as countless texts. The most recent one showed on her screen from Happy: _"A Nick Fury has been trying to reach you re. last night. Natalie says he wants to meet with Tony."_

Pepper bit her lip, glancing up at Tony. He shot her a questioning look.

"Something wrong?"

"A man named Nick Fury has been trying to reach you. Apparently he knows Natalie. Do you know what he could want?"

Tony's face went slightly sour. "Uh, yeah, he was this guy from SHIELD who helped me figure out the palladium problem and gave me a shove in the right direction. Friend of Coulson. Any chance you could deflect that for a while? At least until I've finished this up"

He gestured to the core, and she nodded, getting to her feet.

"I'm gonna run to my apartment really fast...grab my laptop and a change of clothes. Do you want me to book a hotel for the next few days during the remodel?"

"Nah, I'm good here. Unless you'd wanna get a room together, I'd totally go for that. Me, you, honeymoon suite, maybe some champagne..."

"Tony."

"Right, right, of course. Moving too fast."

She smiled lightly, walking over to him and kissing him lightly on the cheek.

"I'll be back in about an hour or so. Don't get into trouble."

"Please, me? Trouble?"

"I mean it Tony. Maybe you should work on cleaning this mess up?"

When Pepper returned, she found Tony disassembling the accelerator. The pieces he'd taken apart were already stacked against one of the walls, and it looked like he was nearly half-way done. He had removed his shirt, and was now barking instructions to Dummy, who from the sarcasm in his tone, was not following Tony's directions.

"No, no, I said a 13mm, not a 15, I swear Dummy, if Pepper didn't like you..."

"You and I both know it's not just me who likes him, Tony. I've seen..."

Pepper trailed off as Tony straightened out and she got a look at his chest. She was alarmed at the sight of the black spidery veins standing in stark relief against his tanned chest, radiating from the reactor. She felt her stomach sink like a stone and her heart gave a painful twist.

Tony noticed her sudden quiet. "...Pepper?"

She took a few steps toward him, hand hovering uncertainly in the air as she got close to him. She gently touched the faceplate. He watched her like she was a skittish deer, unsure what to do.

"Tony...is this...is the old reactor doing this?" Her voice cracked, so she cleared it, trying to steady herself. She looked into his eyes, biting her suddenly trembling lip. "I...is it safe to be using it? Is it hurting you?"

He shrugged, averting his eyes in a careless manner. "Nah, a few hours with the palladium won't kill me—a day longer, maybe, but I'll be fine til we're done."

His words did nothing to reassure her. In fact, his nonchalance suddenly caused Pepper's hands to begin shaking, and she quickly withdrew them close to her body. Taking a ragged breath, she she took several steps back. Tony frowned.

"What?"

A sudden desperate sob escaped her, as her knees went weak. Tony leaped forward to keep her from falling, slowly lowering them to the floor.

"Pepper? Are you okay?" His voice was tight, his touch firm but gentle. It did nothing to reassure her though.

"No!" She was nearly hysterical at this point. "You're dying!"

He reached to touch her cheek in an attempt to calm her. "Nononono, Pepper, I'm fine! I'm not dying-"

"But you were!" She batted his hands away, only to place her own on his chest, staring at the reactor, not even a little calmer. "And you didn't tell me! And worse, I didn't notice! How could I not notice?"

"You—I...Pepper, it wasn't your fault! I was trying to keep you from finding out-"

She met his eye again, tears rolling down her cheek. "But you did! First there was on the plane, with-with the omelette, and then there was at-at the party when you were drunk...that was why, wasn't it? How could I not see...Oh gosh, and at the office, with the strawberries...you were trying to tell me...!"

She trailed off with a small, mournful wail. Tony's arms tightened around her, and she burrowed close, letting all the tension that had been building over the past 24 hours bleed out of her. In the back of her mind, Pepper realized that she was practically a hysterical watering pot at this point, but the larger part of her felt raw at the fact that she had missed something so serious, that she had come so close to losing the one person she knew meant more to her than anything.

It all boiled down to the fact that she knew him well enough to know that he had to have been terrified; Tony Stark did not admit to needing help from anyone unless he was desperate. He had built a metal suit to fight the bad-guys himself before even bothering to bring it up with the government for goodness sake. He had tried to tell her so many times, and she had missed it. And the fact that he was once again forced (albeit temporarily) into using the very device that had been killing him only the day before. Now that she knew, it was killing _her_, too, as said device hummed against her own chest.

But slowly Tony's quiet reassurances and gentle touches began to calm her hysterics. She didn't feel any better though. Her heart still felt heavy in her chest when she finally took a wavering breath, sniffing as she pulled away. Tony kept her close, brushing her cheeks dry with his thumbs.

Pepper looked him in the eye again, spirit drained as she spoke, asking herself.

"Why didn't I notice?"

Immediately, she could see the distress this was causing Tony, but before she could even think to backtrack, he leaned forward and pressed a gentle but emotional kiss to her lips. She responded weakly, keeping her eyes open only to find his own were open as well.

"Virginia, I swear...this is not your fault. Even if I hadn't been hiding it, or if I had told you, nothing could have stopped it. Listen to me. It doesn't matter, Pepper. I'm okay now, and this isn't going to happen again."

"But I should have...after ten years, I should have known if something like this..."

"Pepper, it's okay."

She sighed, looking into his eyes. She could see that conviction that she'd only seen a precious few times, and felt her nerves finally calm to a manageable level. He seemed to recognize this and gave her a genuine smile before brushing his thumbs against her cheeks again.

"Hey there...you okay?"

Pepper nodded softly, finally wrapping her arms around him, pressing a kiss right above his heart.

"I...I will be if you are."

He kissed her forehead, and they remained sitting on the workshop floor for several minutes, just soaking in each other.

Jarvis' voice broke the contented silence.

"Sir, I have finished the diagnostics on the new chestpiece. The palladium can now be switched out at any time. There appears to be no unforeseen adverse affects that could be caused by the new core."

"Great, thanks Jarvis." Tony said, glancing over at the new chestpiece before looking back at Pepper.

"We good now?"

"Yes," she said firmly, moving to get to her feet. "Let's get this one out of you. I don't like...I don't..."

She trailed off, biting her lip as she again saw the lines on his chest. He nodded, hopping to his feet and leading her over to the new reactor. Just as he reached to grab it, he paused, before gesturing toward it.

"Do the honors? I know you told me never to do it again, but it's a completely different setup than before..." He shrugged, the smile that always melted her heart making its way onto his face. "Besides, it's fairly appropriate that you'd be the one to put it back in..."

Biting her lip, she nodded uncertainly, before lifting the chestpiece out of the console. It was thinner, more sleekly designed than the previous ones she'd seen him make. The triangle design was elegant and she found that she liked it. Turning to see him pulling out the old reactor with practiced ease, she reached forward, placing the new reactor in place.

Tony audibly let out a sigh of relief, unconscious tension draining from his form. She watched in a relieved fascination as the sickly dark lines receded. She moved her hand to the side, lightly touching his chest with her fingertips.

"So..." He spoke up after a moment, and Pepper recognized that familiar mischievous gleam enter his eyes again. "You done feeling me up for now? At least down here? I can think of more comfortable places we can move to for this kinda activity..."

She playfully slapped his cheek, before leaning in to kiss him hard. When they pulled apart, he was smiling that smile she loved.

"We good?"

She smiled back, reaching down to thread their fingers together with a sigh.

"Yeah...we're good."

_**Reviews are greatly appreciated!**_


End file.
